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Penal substitution (sometimes, esp. in older writings, called forensic theory)[1][2] is a theory of the atonement within Christian theology, developed with the Reformed tradition.[1][2][3][4][5] It argues that Christ, by his own sacrificial choice, was punished (penalised) in the place of sinners (substitution), thus satisfying the demands of justice so God can justly forgive the sins. It is thus a specific understanding of substitutionary atonement, where the substitutionary nature of Jesus' death is understood in the sense of a substitutionary punishment.
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Some advocates of penal substitution argue that the concept is both biblically based and rooted in the historical traditions of the Church. Those who are critical of it may suggest that it is a later development, argue that at least some versions of the theory present difficulties in terms of modern penal theory, and that it presents God as unjust and even cruel, and that it is historically a comparatively new theory. Though Anselm is sometimes mistakenly credited as founding this theory, it did exist in some form at least as far back as Chrysostom. However, it did not become a part of "orthodox" beliefs until the Reformation, being advocated by both Luther and Calvin.
It has traditionally been compared with the so-called classic theory, that Christ's death represents the cosmic defeat of the devil to whom a ransom had to be paid (or the rescue of humanity from the power of sin and death), a view popularised by Gustaf Aulén; and secondly with the notion that the cross had its effect on human beings, by setting forth a supreme example of godliness or by blazing a trail which we must follow or by involving mankind in his redemptive obedience, the so-called subjective or exemplary theory associated with Peter Abelard and Hastings Rashdall.
On the other hand, those teaching an interpretation of the Cross consistent with penal substitution reject such a characterization of their beliefs. Their theory teaches that Christ's cosmic defeat of the devil was accomplished because Jesus suffered the penalty for mankind's sins. Under this view, the nature of Satan's authority over humanity comes from mankind's guilt, somewhat like a jailer. Once that guilt is paid for and erased, the devil has no more power over the person saved.
Still others argue that seeking a single meaning in Jesus' choice to willingly die on the Cross (as he said in John 12:27 "for this purpose I came to this hour") sets up a false dichotomy, and find multiple effects, motives, and aspects of Jesus' death. They teach that Jesus' death was both penal and exemplary substitution at the same time.
Penal substitution derives from the idea that divine forgiveness must satisfy divine justice, that is, that God is not willing or able to simply forgive sin without first requiring a satisfaction for it.
Important theological disputes about the doctrine turn on the doctrine of the Trinity and (for many but not all expressions of the concept of penal substitution) the doctrine of faith union of believers with Christ which prevents an understanding of penal substitution by those to whom God's grace has not yet been given.
Those who believe that Jesus was himself God in keeping with the doctrine of the Trinity, believe that God took the punishment upon himself rather than putting it on someone else. Objectors say that it is still unjust to transfer guilt, regardless of whether the one to whom it is transferred is willing.
The doctrine of union with Christ affirms that by taking the punishment upon himself Jesus fulfils the demands of justice not for an unrelated third party but for those identified with him. The resurrection of Christ is necessarily linked to this as the vindication of Christ and those who belong to him. If, in the penal substitution understanding of the atonement, the death of Christ deals with sin and injustice, his resurrection is the renewal and restoration of righteousness. Against this, it can be argued, by advocates of the doctrine of endless torment, that the very fact of the resurrection itself disproves the whole scheme of penal substitution, because if the punishment for sin is eternity in hell by what right or means is the punished Christ raised on the third day? Of course it can also be argued, by advocates of universal reconciliation, that if penal substitution is biblical than the resurrection proves their position since Christ was able to pay the entire penalty which means it was not endless.
In scholarly literature it has been generally recognised for some time that the penal substitution theory was not taught in the Early Church.[3][1][2][4][5][6][7] The ransom theory of atonement in conjunction with the moral influence view was nearly universally accepted in this early period.[8] Christian theologians, particularly from the fourth century AD onward, began to hold a variety of other atonement ideas in addition to this view, particularly the Ransom theory of atonement.[9] Controversy around atonement doctrine in the early centuries centred on Athanasius' promotion of a mystical view in which Christ had brought salvation through the incarnation itself, by combining both God and humanity in one flesh.[10] This view of atonement required that Jesus be fully divine and fully human simultaneously, and Athanasius became embroiled in controversies on the Trinity and Christology as a result.
Scholars vary widely regarding how much they are willing to see precursors to penal substitution in the writings of some of the Early Church fathers. There is general agreement that no writer in the Early Church taught penal substitution as their primary theory of atonement. Yet some writers appear to reference some of the ideas of penal substitution as an afterthought or as an aside. The ransom theory of atonement, which became popular during the fourth century AD, is a substitutionary theory of atonement, just as penal substitution is. It can therefore be difficult to distinguish intended references to the ransom view by Early Church writers from real penal substitutionary ideas. Patristics scholar J.N.D. Kelly is one of the scholars most willing to see precursors to penal substitution in the Early Church writings, and points to a variety of passages which "pictur[e] Christ as substituting himself for sinful men, shouldering the penalty which justice required them to pay, and reconciling them to God by his sacrificial death." [11] While scholar J. S. Romanides[12] disagrees with Kelly's reading of these passages. Instead, he argues that they, like the Eastern Orthodox Church of today, understood humankind as separating themselves from God and placing themselves under the power of sin and death. The work of Christ is viewed, he says, not as a satisfaction of God's wrath or the satisfaction of justice which God was bound to by necessity, but as the work of rescuing us from death and its power. He argues that the notion of penal substitution was never contemplated until Augustine, and was never accepted in any form in the East. Further and similarly to Romanides, Derek Flood[13] argues (through the example of Justin Martyr, Augustine and Athanasius) that the Early Church never held an atonement theory of penal substitution but, rather, a restorative substitutionary model of the atonement, and that penal substitution was not truly developed until Calvin. Gustaf Aulén, in his classic Christus Victor, argues that the ransom theory was the dominant understanding of the atonement for over a thousand years and that the penal substitution theory came only after Anselm.
To take patristic examples from among the Latin Fathers, St. Augustine writes that "by His [Jesus'] death, the one most true sacrifice offered on our behalf, He purged abolished and extinguished ... whatever guilt we had." This is one of several strands of thought: he expounds the mediating work of Christ, his act of ransoming humankind and also the exemplary aspect of Christ's work. As with his predecessors, such as Justin Martyr c.100-165 and Gregory of Nazianzus the imagery of sacrifice, ransom, expiation, and reconciliation all appear in his writings—all of these, however, are themes embraced by other atonement models and are not necessarily indicative of penal substitutionary atonement.[14] Gregory of Nazianzus, for example, explicitly denied that Christ died as a payment to God (or to the devil), preferring to say that God accepted Christ's work as a way to rescue humanity, rather than a way to placate God's wrath or purchase forgiveness from God.[15] Augustine's main belief regarding the atonement was not penal substitutionary but, like Gregory's, the classic, or ransom, theory.[16]
The dominant strain in the writing of the Greek Fathers, such as St. Athanasius, was the so-called "physical" theory that Christ, by becoming man, restored the divine image in us; but blended with this is the conviction that his death was necessary to release us from the curse of sin, and that he offered himself in sacrifice for us.[17] For Athanasius, however, Christ's substitution is not a payment to God, but rather a fulfillment of the conditions which are necessary to remove death and corruption from humanity; those conditions, he asserts, exist as consequences from sin.[18]
It was not until St. Anselm's famous work Cur Deus Homo (1098) that attention was focused on the theology of redemption with the aim of providing more exact definitions[19] (though there is disagreement as to how influential penal conceptions were in the first five centuries). Anselm held that to sin is for man "not to render his due to God."[20] Comparing what was due to God and what was due to the feudal Lord, he argued that what was due to God was honour. "'Honour' comprises the whole complex of service and worship which the whole creation, animate and inanimate, in heaven and earth, owes to the Creator. The honour of God is injured by the withdrawal of man's service which he is due to offer."[21] This failure constitutes a debt, weight or doom, for which man must make satisfaction, but which lies beyond his competence; only if a new man can be found who by perfect obedience can satisfy God's honour and by some work of supererogation can provide the means of paying the existing debt of his fellows, can God's original purpose be fulfilled. So Christ not only lives a sinless life, which is again his due, but also is willing to endure death for the sake of love. Thus, Anselm's view can best be understood from medieval feudalistic conceptions of authority, of sanctions and of reparation. Anselmian satisfaction contrasts with penal substitution in that Anselm sees the satisfaction (i.e. restitution) as an alternative to punishment "The honour taken away must be repaid, or punishment must follow" (bk 1 ch 8), whereas penal substitution views the punishment as the means of satisfaction.
In order to better understand the historical situation in which Anselm developed his argument one must recall that medieval common law developed out of Germanic tribal law, in which one finds the principle of the wergild, i.e., the value which a man's life had determined by his social standing within a tribal community. Thus if a man killed a slave, he owed the owner of the slave the amount of money he had paid for the slave or would have to pay to buy another slave of equal worth. If a man killed another free man he forfeited his own life, unless the slain man's family or tribe agreed to accept some amount of money or goods equal to the value of the slain free man's life within his own tribal group. Again, a man's honour is conceived of in terms of his social standing within his own tribal group. Thus, a slave has no honour since he is owned by another, but a free man's social standing is equal to that of another free man within his tribal group, but is subordinate to that of his tribal king. A free man will therefore defend his own honour with his life, or forfeit it (i.e., his social standing within his tribal group) and any affront to his honor by another free man must be repaid by the other man's forfeiting of his own life. Hence the custom of fighting duels. One who committed an affront to another man's honour or would not defend his own affronted honour would be regarded as a coward and suffer outlawry, i.e., he would lose his own social value and standing within his tribal and anyone could kill him without fear of retaliation from the man's tribal group. Thus, since God is infinite, his honour is infinite and any affront to his honour requires from humanity an infinite satisfaction. Furthermore, as humanity's Creator, God is humanity's Master and humanity has nothing of its own with to compensate for this affront to his honour. God, nevertheless, must require something of equal value to his divine honour, otherwise God would forfeit his own essential dignity as God. Anselm resolves the dilemma thus created by maintaining that since Christ is both God and man he can act as humanity's champion, (i.e., as a man he is a member of humanity—again, conceived of in tribal terms.i.e., Christ is member of the human tribe, with all the standing and social responsibilities inherent in such membership) he can pay the infinite werguid the humanity owes the slighted divine honour, for while the life he forfeits to pay this wergild on humanity's behalf is a human life, it is the human life of his divine person thus has the infinite value proper to his divine person. the same time, Christ is also God and thus his divine person and his human life, as the human life of his divine person, has infinite value. Thus by offering his human life (with its nevertheless infinite value as the human life of his divine person) as the werguid humanity owes his divine Master for his humanity's affront to his divine honour as God. At the same time, Christ as God acts as the champion of the infinite dignity of his own divine honour as God and Master of humanity by accepting as God the infinite value of the werguid of his own human life as the human life of his own divine person as the proper and only sufficient werguid due to his own divine honour. One might thus interpret Anselm's understanding of the Cross in terms of dual fought between Christ's identification with humanity as a man and his divine honour as God in which the claims of both his human and divine natures are met, vindicated and thus reconciled.[22]
Broadly speaking, Martin Luther followed Anselm, thus remaining mainly in the "Latin" model identified by Gustaf Aulén. However, he held that Christ's atoning work encompassed both his active and passive obedience to the law: as the perfectly innocent God-man, he fulfilled the law perfectly during his life AND he, in his death on the cross, bore the eternal punishment that all men deserved for their breaking the law. Unlike Anselm, Luther thus combines both satisfaction and punishment.[23] Furthermore, Luther rejects the fundamentally legalistic character of Anselm's paradigm in terms of an understanding of the Cross in the more personal terms of an actual conflict between the wrath of God as the sinner and the love of God for the same sinner.[24] For Luther this conflict was real, personal, dynamic and not merely forensic or analogical.[25] If Anselm conceived of the Cross in terms a forensic duel between Christ's identification with humanity and the infinite value and majesty of his divine person, Luther saw the Cross as a new Gotterdammerung, a dramatic, definitive struggle between the divine attributes of God's implacable righteousness against the sinful humanity and inscrutable identification with this same helpless humanity which gave birth to a New Creation, whose undeniable reality could only be glimpsed through faith and whose invincible power worked only through love. One cannot understand the unique character or force of Luther's and the Lutheran understanding of the Cross apart from this dramatic character which is not readily translated into or expressed through the more rational philosophical categories of dogmatic theology, even when these categories are those of Lutheran Orthodoxy itself.
Calvin appropriated Anselm's ideas but changed the terminology to that of the criminal law with which he was familiar - he was trained as a lawyer - reinterpreted in the light of Biblical teaching on the law. Man is guilty before God's judgement and the only appropriate punishment is eternal death. The Son of God has become man and has stood in man's place to bear the immeasurable weight of wrath; the curse, and the condemnation of a righteous God. He was "made a substitute and a surety in the place of transgressors and even submitted as a criminal, to sustain and suffer all the punishment which would have been inflicted on them."[26]
The work of the Reformers, including Zwingli and Philip Melanchthon, was hugely influential. It took away from religion the requirement of works, whether corporal or spiritual, of the need for penances, belief in purgatory, indeed the whole medieval penitential system; and it did so by emphasising the finality of Christ's work.
Ever since the doctrine of penal substitution received full expression in the Reformation period, it has been the subject of continual criticism on biblical, moral and logical grounds. A number of 21st century works provide recent critiques.[27][28][29][30] The first extensive criticism of the penal substitutionary view came during the Reformation period from within the Anabaptist movement, from the pen of Faustus Socinus.[31] He argued that penal substitution was "irrational, incoherent, immoral and impossible."[32] His objections were as follows:
Socinus thought that Jesus was not himself God come in the flesh to intentionally die for humanity. Socinus argued against the Trinity. It thus follows as a natural consequence that it would be unjust to punish Jesus for the sins of others. Similarly, his argument that a temporary death of one would not be sufficient to pay for all mankind's sins also flows from his premise that Jesus was only an ordinary man.
Calvin's general framework, coinciding as it did with a rising respect for law, considered as a bulwark against the ferments of war, revolution and civil insurrection, remained normative for Reformed Christians for the next three centuries. Moreover, if Socinus spoke from the point of view of the radical reformers, there were also Catholics for whom the once and for all nature of Christ's redeeming work was in danger of weakening the doctrine of sanctification and the spiritual life of the believer and his or her appropriation of the divine mystery through the sacraments of penance and the Eucharist.
Further, with the development of notions of inalienable personal responsibility in law, the idea of "penal" substitution has become less easy to maintain. In modern law, the punishment of the innocent and the acquittal of the guilty is regarded as the perfect example of injustice.[33] F.W. Dillistone stated that "no strictly penal theology of the atonement can be expected to carry conviction in the world of the twentieth century."[34]
Among the problems identified is that fact that the word "penal" implies an association with law, but the relationship between theological ideas and social institutions such as the law changes.[35] The contemporary argument as to the relationship of human rights to positive law is a modern extension of this.
Secondly, ideas of justice and punishment are not the same in Jewish law, imperial Roman law, sixteenth century European law and modern common law. Thus, for instance, "satisfaction" and "merit" are understandable within the context of Roman law, but sit less easily within either Old or New Testament conceptions. Likewise, when the word "penal" is used it raises as many questions about the different theories of punishment, past and present.
Thirdly, in Calvin's work, and subsequently, there is an interplay between legal and cultic language. Words such as "curse", "expiation", "propitiation", "wrath", "sacrifice" appear together with sixteenth century legal language. "The framework is legal, the process is cultic. Removal of legal sanctions is equated with freedom of access in worship."[36] Calvin contends that it was necessary for Jesus to suffer through a judicial process and to be condemned as a criminal (even though the process was flawed and Pilate washed his hands of the condemnation), but tying this to the need for sacrifice "proved to be a dead weight upon the thinking and imagining of Reformed Christendom."[36] according to Dillstone.
Next, the two words, "expiation" and "propitiation" present problems. It has been argued that the former, which means to purge away, needs to be distinguished from the latter which means to appease a person and that it is propitiation which presents the problem for those who are critical of the idea of penal substitution. Anglican theologian O.C. Quick points out "the persistent mistake of supposing that sin-offerings must somehow have been meant to propitiate God by the killing of a victim in the offerer's stead, an idea which has been a source of endless confusion in the exegesis of the New Testament."[37] Austin Farrer likewise argues that St. Paul's words should be translated in terms of expiation not propitiation.[38] Karl Barth (and later Jürgen Moltmann) argued that propitiation and expiation are false categories when applied to the triune God: if God forgives us in and through Christ ("Christ pays our debt") then the cost has been borne by God in, as, and through Christ. For God to propitiate himself is expiation; because expiation is always self-propitiation as it means the forgiver paying the debt (here, the price of the sin) at his own expense. Hence Dietrich Bonhoeffer says grace is free, but is not cheap.
Additionally, a view of human salvation which defines it in terms of once-and-for-all acquittal has to deal with its relationship to subsequent actions[39] and the lives of those not born at the time of the Paschal Mystery.[40]
Some, like Karl Barth, simply criticised the concept of sanctification of God's wrath for being unscriptural.[41]
Proponents of penal substitution contend that critics overlook the repeated declarations of Jesus that he intended to die on the cross, and that his death was the very purpose for which he was born on the Earth (John 12:27). It is irrelevant, they argue, whether it might be unjust to punish an innocent bystander involuntarily, since the actual proposition is one of Jesus offering voluntarily to die on behalf of others, like a soldier throwing himself on a hand grenade to save his fellow soldiers. Jesus himself taught that "greater love has no one than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13) and repeatedly announced that he was intentionally going to Jerusalem, knowing that he was heading to his death (Mark 8:31; Luke 9:22).
Jesus' identity as himself being God is also central to penal substitution. Those who do not believe that Jesus was God visiting the Earth in human form necessarily conclude that God chose a bystander named Jesus to suffer for others. However, those who believe that Jesus was actually God (John 14:7-9; 10:30-33) conclude that God—against whom mankind had sinned—came to accept the penalty upon himself. Thus, they see no injustice in God choosing to come to Earth in order to take humanity's sin upon himself. However, the replies in these two paragraphs do not directly answer the objection that guilt is inherently non-transferable, whether the victim seeks to have it transferred or not. While they show that Jesus was not in the position of being punished involuntarily, they do not show that it is possible or just to punish a willing innocent victim in place of the guilty. J. I. Packer[32] admits that proponents do not know how this could be possible but choose to believe it anyway.
J. I. Packer[32] states that language must be used in a stretched sense. God is not a sixteenth century monarch, he says, and divine government is not the same as earthly government. He states that Christians should regard all truth of God as an "apprehended mystery", and always hold that God is greater than our formularies. He holds, nonetheless, that penal substitution can be described as a model in a way comparable to how physics uses the term. He defines the term model, in a theological sense, as "explanatory constructs formed to help us know, understand, and deal with God, the ultimate reality." He states that the "mystery of God is more than any one model, even the best, can express." He states that "all the knowledge we can have of the atonement is of a mystery which we can only think and speak by means of models." To Packer, the biblical models are presented as being inspired by God and given to us as "knowledge of the mystery of the cross." The theologian Stephen Sykes has interpreted Packer's account of penal substitution as being presented as a metaphor.
Theologians who advocate penal substitution are keen to define the doctrine carefully, rather than, as Packer says, crudely. The primary question is, he says, not the rationality or morality of God but the remission of one's sins. He suggests that it be seen not as a mechanical explanation (how it works) but rather than kerygmatically (what it means to us).[32] Denney contends that the atonement should not be seen forensically (though as Packer says, Denney avoided the term "penal" in any case).[42] What matters in Packer's view is that "Jesus Christ our Lord, moved by a love that was determined to do everything necessary to save us, endured and exhausted the destructive divine judgement for which we were otherwise inescapably destined, and so won us forgiveness, adoption and glory".[32] Thus, John Stott critiques loveless caricatures of the cross as "a sacrifice to appease an angry God, or ... a legal transaction in which an innocent victim was made to pay the penalty for the crimes of others" as being "neither the Christianity of the bible in general nor of Paul in particular" and further that "It is doubtful if anybody has ever believed such a crude construction."[43]
The Bible includes, not merely the story of the Paschal mystery in the Gospels, but also the sources of ideas of the atonement. The Fathers often worked upon biblical quotations,[44] from both Testaments, describing Christ's saving work, sometimes adding one to another from different places in Scripture.[45] Calvin made special appeal to the Suffering Servant passage in Isaiah 53 and to 1 Peter 3:18-22 with its reference to the "Harrowing of Hell" - the release of the spirits of those who had died before Christ. From the former he singled out "But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed." Both are set, by Calvin within the context of Pilate's court of judgement to which, however, they do not properly belong;[46] nevertheless, the image of "one who has borne the stripes and the chastisement which should, by strict desert have fallen"[47] upon others, within the divine purpose, is, on all sides agreed to be an essential element in the story.
On the basis of Romans 3:23-26 it has been argued that there are, in fact, different models of penal substitution[48] in which ideas of justification work together with redemption and sacrifice (expiation). Thus: "For all alike have sinned and are deprived of the divine glory and all are justified by God's free grace alone through his act of redemption in the person of Christ Jesus. For God designed him to be the means of expiating sin by his death, effective through faith. God meant by this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had overlooked the sins of the past, showing that he is himself just and also justified anyone who puts his faith in Jesus."
Most recently controversy has arisen over the strict doctrine of penal substitution in which Socinus's argument about the justice of God has been raised: namely, whether it constitutes "cosmic child abuse."[49] Proponents of penal substitution reject Socinus's charge out of hand because he also rejects the trinity, in which there is substantial unity between the God the Father and God the Son and which, in their view, breaks the analogy.
The debate has largely been conducted in evangelical circles,[50] though the dismissal of the doctrine of penal substitution on moral grounds by the Anglo-Catholic Dean of St Albans, Jeffrey John, in a broadcast talk during Holy Week 2007[51][52] has drawn fire in his direction.[53][54][55]
In his book Mere Christianity C.S. Lewis mentions that before becoming a Christian, the doctrine of penal substitution had seemed extremely unethical to him, and that while he had since found it to be less so, he nonetheless indicated a preference for a position closer to that of Athanasius, in which Christ's death is seen as enabling us to die to sin by our participation, and not as a satisfaction or payment to justice as such. He also stated, however, that in his view no explanation of the atonement is as relevant as the fact of the atonement. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in his fantasy fiction series, The Chronicles of Narnia, depicts the king Aslan surrendering himself to Jadis the White Witch as a substitute for the life of Edmund Pevensie, which appears to illustrate a ransom or Christus Victor approach to the atonement.
George MacDonald, a universalist Christian theologian who was a great influence on Lewis, wrote against the idea that God was unable or unwilling to forgive humans without a substitutionary punishment in his Unspoken Sermons, and stated that he found the idea to be completely unjust.[56]